


shadows of the city

by postalcoast



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: M/M, Vampire AU, basically if john replaced the vampire encounter in saint denis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:42:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28701630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postalcoast/pseuds/postalcoast
Summary: the sections in italic are supposed to read as Arthur's journal entries, but I kinda struggle with his own personal voice that he puts into them so like u can read them however u like
Relationships: John Marston/Arthur Morgan
Comments: 10
Kudos: 25





	shadows of the city

**Author's Note:**

> the sections in italic are supposed to read as Arthur's journal entries, but I kinda struggle with his own personal voice that he puts into them so like u can read them however u like

_ There are several pieces of foreboding writings littered about Saint Denis, all of which warn about some monster that feeds on human blood. Reminds me of that vampire book Hosea lent me a couple of years back, seems some people took the tale more seriously than might’ve been intended. Or this is all some sick joke. Either is very likely, I suppose.  _

Arthur finds him in some back alley in Saint Denis near the cathedral. On purpose or by accident, Arthur isn’t sure.

He comes from the saloon a couple of blocks away, walking through the city with his horse trailing along behind him and the city is quiet for once. It’s late, Arthur knows that much, and he’s tipsy enough to follow through with whatever impulse that sends him searching for something he isn’t even aware of.

Blind wanderings, a sneaking suspicion. Whatever it may be. It leads Arthur to the back of this alley, as the moon looks on overhead, calm and glowing.

Arthur isn’t sure what he’s looking for until he finds it - in the form of a man leaned up against the worn brick wall as if he’s waiting on someone. As if he’s waiting on Arthur, specifically. 

Arthur gets the strange feeling he knows of the man before having met him, even though he doesn’t recognize him. Perhaps this man knows of Arthur just as Arthur knows of him. 

He’s almost certain this man is the purpose of those writings, whether or not he put those there himself, and the man’s just waiting here on Arthur as if he was expecting him to connect the last piece of the puzzle. 

The man only spares a glance in Arthur’s direction, doesn’t startle with the company, and Arthur takes in the man’s appearance in the dim glow from the wall fixtures. 

A bit scruffy, nothing of the Count Dracula that Arthur remembers being described in the book. Then again, Arthur isn’t sure what he was expecting, but he’s  _ pretty _ sure a character from some gothic horror novel wasn’t it. 

Shoulder length black hair, a thin waist and a broad set of shoulders. Handsome, from what Arthur can tell. 

It’s only then that Arthur realizes he’s staring when the man glances over at him again and asks - flat and impatient, “Who’re you lookin’ for, friend?”

“Nobody,” the answer comes from Arthur automatically, glancing around at his surroundings now as if he isn’t sure it’s him the man is addressing.

“You lookin’ for me?” The man keeps his gaze locked on Arthur, almost warily and watchful in a way that makes Arthur feel exposed, sort of. Intense. This whole situation has been nothing but intense, right down to the crude letters marked on the buildings of Saint Denis.

“I don’t know,” Arthur just now notices that his shoulders are squared up and tense, unconsciously readying himself for a fight he isn’t sure will come. He doesn’t relax them, though, just continues to meet the man’s gaze across the alley. “who are you?”

“Nobody,” The man answers easily enough. He’s smirking now, too, slightly amused. 

His own demeanor is so different from the man’s, who’s still leaned up against the wall, waiting as if he’s got all the time in the world. Arthur doesn’t entirely blame him for finding this situation a bit funny, what with Arthur standing here in front of him, one hand hovering over the gun in his belt like he’s waiting on the man to make the first threatening move. 

Silence settles over them for a few moments, until the man chuckles - a short little huff of breath, and lifts himself off the wall. 

“John Marston,” The man offers, but he keeps his distance. “although I guess you already knew that.”

“How d’you figure?”

“You’ve been following me, I know you have,” The man -  _ John,  _ says. Matter-of-factly. He’s still watching Arthur, eyes burning into him and then boring through him. 

“I ain’t been followin’ you, partner,” Arthur tells him. Honest. But maybe he has, in an inadvertently sort of way. Maybe their paths are meant to cross, like some strange sort of fate. “I don’t even know who you are, nor do I want to.”

And well, maybe that’s a lie, too.

“Then what’re you doing here?” John asks him as if he’s reading his mind completely. He’s still smiling, a subtle thing yet it reaches his eyes. 

Arthur takes a couple of small steps forward, as if to get a better look and John remains planted in place. He has a few scars reaching across his cheek and over his nose that Arthur can make out in the dim lighting. Arthur wonders how he got them.

“I - uh, well,” Arthur starts, searching for the words. The reason for his being here. “I saw a bunch of warnings, I guess, written on some of the buildings around Saint Denis. Maybe they lead me here.”

John snorts at this. “I’ve seen them - the fine people of Saint Denis can be very poetic.” He says. “Catch wind of something strange in the slightest and they have to turn it into something mythical.”

It isn’t much but Arthur takes that as a confirmation. The writings are about John, just as he suspected, or perhaps already knew. 

“Which one are  _ you, _ then?” Arthur asks. “Strange or mythical?”

“Neither, I suppose,” John shrugs, an answer as easy as the question thrown at him. “Just trying to survive like anyone else.”

“You survive by drinking people’s  _ blood _ ?” Arthur’s once again reminded of Hosea’s book. The tale of the undead feeding on the living’s blood, a tale Arthur thought sounded ridiculous from the beginning, but eventually found himself reading the novel anyway. “Like some sort of  _ vampire _ ?”

“I guess you could call it that.”

***

_ John Marston is one strange creature, not the strangest I’ve yet to meet. He talks as if all those writings were about him, and well, either he’s telling the truth or I’m just that gullible. He told me to come see him again. I told him I would.  _

They’re in a bar the second time their paths cross again. A little less on fate’s behalf, and more on Arthur’s willing. Maybe he could have another chance to blame fate just yet. Maybe meeting John Marston, and meeting him over and over again was fate’s plan for him. 

Maybe his entire life has led up to this very moment, sitting here with John Marston.

In none other than the Bastille Saloon.

Named after the Bastille fortress in Paris, which was stormed on the 14th of July in 1789, John tells him. Arthur asks if he’d been alive then - at first, as a joke, although John doesn’t laugh.

John just shakes his head. No, he hadn’t been. “I’m still relatively  _ new _ , I guess you could say.”

Before long, they’re chatting over a couple of glasses of whiskey - and Arthur studies the man beside him. He listens as John talks - about nothing (John has a way of making anything sound like _ something _ . The most mediocre of topics sound interesting). 

His voice is gruff, but his words are smooth. He’s certainly not the most poetic of speakers, but he’s certainly got this sense of charismatic charm that people only such as Dutch and Hosea possess.

He’s handsome, Arthur notices again. Even in this dim lighting. 

Arthur asks him what it’s like to bite someone. To feed off their blood.

John looks momentarily caught off guard, as if this is a question he didn’t expect. He tells him it’s like a kiss, sort of but not really. 

“And folk just let you bite them, then?”

John considers this, his expression turned somewhat thoughtful before his gaze drifts back to Arthur. He shrugs, nonchalant. “Sure.” 

Then, “ _ folk  _ such as yourself who’re fascinated by the idea of one walking with the undead. Sometimes these folk are kind enough to help me survive, offer up just a little of their own blood out of pity or just morbid curiosity.”

Arthur leans back against his chair, the wood creaking with his movement as he relaxes his posture from where he’s been more or less hovering over his glass of whiskey since the two of them sat down. John doesn’t make him feel uneasy. John’s something like an old friend, and despite only having met him a couple of weeks ago, Arthur feels like he’s known him whole life.

And Arthur’s grinning when he asks, “Who said you  _ fascinated _ me?”

And John’s grinning, too. A smile that, Arthur thinks, could ruin him if he let it. But that sort of thought usually comes with a cloud of tipsiness spurred on by one too many glasses of whiskey. 

And yet, Arthur isn’t even tipsy yet, not in the slightest.

“ _ You _ did, albeit a bit indirectly.”

“I did?”

“You came back, didn’t you?”

“I suppose I did.”

And they’re laughing. New-old friends sat in the dimly-lit corner of the Bastille Saloon. John’s laugh is a breathless thing, lingering in the air around them like the smoke coming from the nearby patron’s cigars. 

Arthur decides it’s a beautiful sound. Like the sound of birds chirping in the morning, or crickets in late summer. It’s a sound he definitely wouldn’t mind hearing again.

***

When he first met John, he’d eyed Arthur in a way that reminded him of the wolves up in Colter. Cunning and wary, almost. Stalking towards him, preparing for an attack. Now, it seems, John looks at him the same way he’d seen Hosea examine weeds, trying to tell if the plant’s just merely Virginia creeper, or maybe Box elder that’s fell from a tree, or if it’s poison ivy. 

***

“I’m Arthur, by the way,” Arthur says to him, his lips pulling back over the cigarette dangling from his mouth in a tight smile.

They’re standing outside of the saloon now, and it’s late enough that the streets are nearly empty. Arthur prefers it like this, quiet. Calm.

A stark difference from the usual busy hustle and bustle that lives within Saint Denis’s streets during the day.

Arthur notices the way John’s eyeing him, now. Casual, yet a bit intense, and he matches Arthur’s smile, although a bit lopsided and chuckles. “I know.”

  
  
  



End file.
